Maxon debuts Cinema 4D Release 19 at SIGGRAPH

Maxon was at this year’s SIGGRAPH in Los Angeles showing Cinema 4D Release 19 (R19). This next-generation of Maxon’s pro 3D app offers a new viewport and a new Sound Effector, and additional features for Voronoi Fracturing have been added to the MoGraph toolset. It also boasts a new Spherical Camera, the integration of AMD’s ProRender technology and more. Designed to serve individual artists as well as large studio environments, Release 19 offers a streamlined workflow for general design, motion graphics, VFX, VR/AR and all types of visualization.

With Cinema 4D Release 19, Maxon also introduced a few re-engineered foundational technologies, which the company will continue to develop in future versions. These include core software modernization efforts, a new modeling core, integrated GPU rendering for Windows and Mac, and OpenGL capabilities in BodyPaint 3D, Maxon’s pro paint and texturing toolset.

More details on the offerings in R19:Viewport Improvements provide artists with added support for screen-space reflections and OpenGL depth-of-field, in addition to the screen-space ambient occlusion and tessellation features (added in R18). Results are so close to final render that client previews can be output using the new native MP4 video support.

MoGraph enhancements expand on Cinema 4D’s toolset for motion graphics with faster results and added workflow capabilities in Voronoi Fracturing, such as the ability to break objects progressively, add displaced noise details for improved realism or glue multiple fracture pieces together more quickly for complex shape creation. An all-new Sound Effector in R19 allows artists to create audio-reactive animations based on multiple frequencies from a single sound file.

The new Spherical Camera allows artists to render stereoscopic 360° virtual reality videos and dome projections. Artists can specify a latitude and longitude range, and render in equirectangular, cubic string, cubic cross or 3×2 cubic format. The new spherical camera also includes stereo rendering with pole smoothing to minimize distortion.

New Polygon Reduction works as a generator, so it’s easy to reduce entire hierarchies. The reduction is pre-calculated, so adjusting the reduction strength or desired vertex count is extremely fast. The new Polygon Reduction preserves vertex maps, selection tags and UV coordinates, ensuring textures continue to map properly and providing control over areas where polygon detail is preserved.

Level of Detail (LOD) Object features a new interface element that lets customers define and manage settings to maximize viewport and render speed, create new types of animations or prepare optimized assets for game workflows. Level of Detail data exports via the FBX 3D file exchange format for use in popular game engines.

AMD’s Radeon ProRender technology is now seamlessly integrated into R19, providing artists a cross-platform GPU rendering solution. Though just the first phase of integration, it provides a useful glimpse into the power ProRender will eventually provide as more features and deeper Cinema 4D integration are added in future releases.

Modernization efforts in R19 reflect Maxon’s development legacy and offer the first glimpse into the company’s planned ‘under-the-hood’ future efforts to modernize the software, as follows:

Revamped Media Core gives Cinema 4D R19 users a completely rewritten software core to increase speed and memory efficiency for image, video and audio formats. Native support for MP4 video without QuickTime delivers advantages to preview renders, incorporate video as textures or motion track footage for a more robust workflow. Export for production formats, such as OpenEXR and DDS, has also been improved.

Robust Modeling offers a new modeling core with improved support for edges and N-gons can be seen in the Align and Reverse Normals commands. More modeling tools and generators will directly use this new core in future versions.

BodyPaint 3D now uses an OpenGL painting engine giving R19 artists painting color and adding surface details in film, game design and other workflows, a real-time display of reflections, alpha, bump or normal, and even displacement, for improved visual feedback and texture painting. Redevelopment efforts to improve the UV editing toolset in Cinema 4D continue with the first-fruits of this work available in R19 for faster and more efficient options to convert point and polygon selections, grow and shrink UV point selects, and more.